The Great Salmon Train
In a bid to secure freight business, a Seattle railroad manager stored an entire season's catch of salmon in boxcars for six months, resulting in the city's largest-ever rail shipment.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
A train made up of sixteen freighters, loaded with canned salmon, will leave the Puget Sound Shore Railroad this morning for Chicago. The salmon was shipped by Elsmore, Sanborn & Company, salmon canners of Astoria, to J. K. Armsby & Company of Chicago. The salmon was put up by George T. Myers at West Seattle, and the Columbia Canning Company of this city, last fall, and was all caught in the vicinity of Seattle. It will be taken through as a special train and will reach Chicago inside of seven days. This is by far the largest single shipment of salmon ever made out of Seattle. There are 30,000 pounds in each car, and this multiplied by sixteen, the number of cars, makes a total of 480,000 pounds. The salmon is worth at the least calculation $40,000. Some six months ago, Mr. Myers came to L. A. Nadeau, manager of the Puget Sound Shore Railroad, and said he desired to store the canned salmon he had on hand until he had effected a sale, and if it was stored he would give the transportation of it East to the road which accommodated him. Mr. Nadeau, owing to the lack of freight depot facilities, in order to secure the shipment, was compelled to put the salmon into boxcars and has so kept it stored for the past six months. Naturally, he feels relieved at getting it off his tracks.
“Owing to the lack of freight depot facilities, in order to secure the shipment, [the manager] was compelled to put the salmon into boxcars... Naturally he feels relieved at getting it off his tracks.”
This story highlights the perennial tension between Seattle’s infrastructure limitations and its role as a global logistics hub. Just as L.A. Nadeau scrambled for depot space in 1889 to move fish, modern Seattle continues to grapple with the growing pains of its industrial and shipping capacity.
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